Barburrito plans three more site openings soon
Manchester-based Mexican fast casual dining group Barburrito is set to open another three sites soon, according to company co-founder Morgan Davies.
The news came as the business opened its first site in London last week, at Paddington station.
Davies said that the next site to open would be in Leeds, the second of the brand's outlets there. Fit-out has already started and it is set to open its doors in May. Meanwhile there are plans for a second new opening in another as-yet-unnamed city in the North, and there are legal discussions on-going for another new opening in London.
Barburrito, which was founded in 2005, secured £3.25m through the Business Growth Fund in April last year to fund its expansion from six sites to 18. Its latest opening in Paddington, almost a year on from that investment, was its seventh.
Davies explained: "We have spent the past 12 months getting our act together. We have invested heavily as a company in terms of our business systems, standards, staff training, new interior design and brand design to make sure our platform is right for expansion."
"We have just been through a budgeting process and we are ahead of budget and our like-for-like sales are very strong, up 15-20% at a site level in our current estate. We don't see any reason why we can't take the business from six to 18 sites rapidly."
Meanwhile, Davies said that he was pleased to see that the company's original site in Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester was still seeing year-on-year growth.
"I think that is a real testament to what we have done with the business and we believe there is a lot of headroom for growth. Basically we are retaining customers and building new ones through word of mouth," he said.
Barburrito's Paddington site is a 560 sq ft unit in the Lawn area of the station with a contemporary design by London-based interior design company Caulder Moore.
Barburrito chairman Colin Hughes, formerly head of retail operations at EAT and Pret A Manger, said: "I am delighted that we have established our first Barburrito in the capital. Our recent £3.25m investment from the Business Growth Fund will enable us to take the UK's first burrito business into many locations across London."
